


Red Is (not) For Eating

by GaleIsSomething



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bed & Breakfast, Blood and Injury, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Dead People, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Getting to Know Each Other, Horror, Humanstuck, M/M, Making Out, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Painting, Trans Male Character, an attempt at spooks, gamzee is not rly a juggalo in this one, more just cultist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-04-11 22:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19119196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaleIsSomething/pseuds/GaleIsSomething
Summary: There's something weird going on with Makaras outside of the eating disorders. Dave kind of wants to figure it out, only if it's to understand what's going on with Gamzee and his aversion to red.(based off the book White Is For Witching more info in notes)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i recently finished the novel white is for witching by helen oyeyemi and it's genuinely the best horror novel i've read to date!!
> 
> i'm not gonna spoil anything but there are a lot of hints of major spoilers for it in this work as a whole. chapters aren't necessarily chronological in the beginning.
> 
> this is also a highkey an excuse to try and write semi-similar to oyeyemi bc her writing slaps as well as some proper horror. no idea if this is gonna succeed or not
> 
> first chapter is a bit,,,,, scandalous,,,,,,,,

Dave tastes like apple, sugar, metal, with bitter copper undertones. His hands are warm where they slide up Gamzee’s neck and into his hair. All of him is warm against Gamzee’s cold hands and skin. His stomach is soft, his palms are calloused, and his lips are firm. There’s a ring through the middle of his bottom lip and another piercing in his tongue. The metal is warm, too. The ring catches occasionally on the bits of broken skin on Gamzee’s lips--from biting and gnawing the wrong things. 

(right things were red. warm viscous red)

Gamzee lets Dave nudge him so Dave is on top, leaning over Gamzee’s frail figure. Dave’s hands are stronger, much more sure and not shaky in the slightest. He drags them over Gamzee’s hips and around to his back, under his shirt. Gamzee slings an arm around Dave’s shoulders and pulled him closer.

The heat coming off Dave was addicting. Gamzee wanted more of it.

(crawl inside)

Dave’s hands don’t stop or hesitate as they wander over Gamzee’s back and stomach. They don’t linger on scars. They don’t trace them delicately. Dave doesn’t ask. Gamzee tightens his grip on Dave and digs his fingers into his coiled blonde hair. He wants all that Dave will offer, odd bitter metal taste and all. 

Dave chuckles as his sunglasses pinch awkwardly. He leans back but Gamzee doesn’t want to let him go. Dave smirks and gently tugs Gamzee’s hands off him. Gamzee flops back on the pillows. He feels cold but he watches Dave and feels warmth in his stomach. Dave pulls his sunglasses off and put them on the end table. 

His eyes are red. 

(delicious)

His face is ruddy with flush and heat. The latent heat under his skin. Dave leans back over and helps Gamzee take off his shirt. Gamzee tries to make it smooth but his elbow gets stuck and he gets a finger stuck in his hair. Dave doesn’t make fun of him. He smiles and just helps until the black long-sleeve shirt hits the floor. 

Gamzee is ready to get right back to the heat of kissing and having Dave’s body against him. Dave leans back yet again and Gamzee wants to pull him back. However, Dave grabs the back of his shirt collar and pulls the shirt over his head. Gamzee sees why Dave didn’t stop on scars or seemed surprised. He was covered in them--arms, chest, stomach all littered with white marks. There are two bigger ones under his chest. Gamzee wants to map every single one. He wants to trace them and paint pretty colors on his white skin. Anything but red. 

(only red)

“Hey,” Dave says. Gamze jolts and blinks up at him, snapping out of whatever trance he found himself in. Dave would look great in purples. Not green, though. It would make him look like a Christmas tree with his pretty red eyes. “How you doin’?”

“Pretty motherfuckin’ good,” Gamzee mumbles. He shifts his shoulders awkwardly, worried about what he was supposed to do with his hands. His arms have always been too long, too awkward. “You?”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Dave says. His grin is sharp but soft and his eyes bleed affection. 

(bleed pretty pretty red)

Gamzee wipes the thoughts from his head by pushing himself up into a sitting position. They’re the same height with Dave straddling his hips like this. Dave is still smiling slightly as Gamzee leans forward and locks their lips again. Gamzee wraps his arms around Dave’s waist, sliding his hands up and down his back to sap off the addictive warmth. Dave tangles fingers in Gamzee’s hair, undoing the messy ponytail it was pulled into. He takes care to fluff it out. Gamzee lets a happy noise out at the feeling of nails on his scalp.

Dave pulls away slightly to breathe, grinning and staring at Gamzee. Red red eyes. Fucking gorgeous. 

Dave’s face goes bright red and Gamzee had spoken aloud. He blushes himself and Dave tries to laugh it off. Gamzee hides his face in Dave’s collar. Dave rubs his back and pets his hair. Gamzee could sleep like that. He could sleep better than he had in years like that. Swaddled in that warmth and drowning in those red red eyes. 

(in the red red under the skin)

“Hey, how far are we taking this?” Dave asks quietly. Gamzee pressed his lips to Dave’s collarbone and looks at the space of the room behind him. He doesn’t really get the question. Dave rolls his hips and it makes Gamzee yelp an embarrassing noise and go flushed again. “Yo, yo, all cool, don’t worry. We don’t gotta do anything too serious.” 

Gamzee pulls away from Dave’s shoulder and looks Dave in the eyes. 

(soak them both in red. red on his tongue and in his stomach. red all over his skin)

Gamzee gently puts the tips of their noses together. Dave blinks in surprise and raises his eyebrows. Gamzee rubs his cold fingers up Dave’s spine. Dave arches back from the feeling, shivers wracking through him. Gamzee moves forward so their noses stay touching. He smiles when Dave does. 

Warm hands fall from his hair to shoulders. Rough fingertips trace his too sharp collarbones, sticking out jaggedly under his skin. They move down his chest and along the bumps of his ribs. Dave kisses him again and again. They fall back against the pillows and blankets. Dave rolls his hips again and Gamzee tries to make his noise less embarrassing. Dave still smirks at him knowingly. He slides his hands over the sharp edges of Gamzee’s hips and under the waistband of his pants. Gamzee scratches lightly at Dave’s back.

The house creaks and settles. 

(red is the tastiest)


	2. Gamzee Makara

lives at the Vantas’s Bed and Breakfast off a major road, tucked in the woods. He works there doing odd tasks after being taken in. He bakes pies for breakfast and dessert, usually apples since it’s what fell from the tree in the back. All season apples. Sometimes they fell on the roof and clattered along. Gamzee thought they told him things in morse code. He learned it trying to decipher the tapping of apples on the roof. It got him nothing. He cleans messes and cooks some meals. He mans the front desk only when no one is available.

When he was young, his father joined a cult. 

When he was a kid, his brother did the same. 

When he was a teen, his father killed his brother and then himself in a sacrifice to the Messiahs. 

Jarach Makara, the oldest, was not the first. He ate raw meat and drank blood fresh from the tap. He painted his walls wild colors. When the meat ran out, he ate his own skin and drank his own blood. There were others before him, but he was the first to have the Makara family name. His paint of choice was oil. 

Kurloz Makara, the brother, was after Jarach. He used to eat plastic and chalk. He drank cleaning fluid, swallowed stones. He tried to stop it. He stitched his mouth closed. When the stitches snapped, he stapled his lips shut. He was sent to the clinic at a young age. He came back unchanged, just better at hiding it. He hadn’t spoken in years. He preferred watercolors. 

Gamzee drinks soda--the worst sugariest shit he could get his hands on. He only eats sweets and things that should rot his teeth. 

(why didn’t they rot)

He eats acryllic paint. He bites his lips and rips the skin off until blood drips. He bites his nails until they bleed. Then he drinks the blood up. It bursts copper and bitter on his tongue. Metallic and delicious. Warm and wet.

Gamzee bakes early in the morning. Then the pies are fresh and warm for the guests to eat if they want something sweet for breakfast. It was apple and blueberry the day Dave arrived. Well no, he arrived late the night before when Gamzee was asleep. But it was the first morning Dave woke up there. Gamzee was setting out the first two pies to cool when Dave came stumbling down the stairs.

Dave waited for Gamzee to give the go ahead before he dug into the pie. Gamzee finished off the other pies while Dave hummed and swooned over the pie. Gamzee found himself giggling and his hands less shaky when he was handling the knife. 

Gamzee doesn’t bother going to school, not since the murders. He “learns” things when Karkat come by over breaks. Karkat is insistent on teaching him things. Gamzee never retains information longer than Karkat’s visits. He knows how to read and how to write and it’s enough. It’s not how he wants to spend time, though. He paints more than anything. He spends the small allowance that Mister Vantas gives him on supplies from the store down the street. He takes the hand-me-down bike that was deemed his. It’s on the small side and Gamzee has to stand so his knees don’t knock into the bars every second. 

The old woman there knows him by now. She smiles warmly at him and seems trusting enough. Looking into his own mind, Gamzee finds that he doesn’t trust her. People aren’t so nice on their own. Not without alternate intent. Gamzee never responds to her pleasantries--How are you? Good weather isn’t it? What are you working on? If she knows too much then she might try to find him at the b&b. He buys acryllic and wall paint. 

Mister Vantas lets him paint the walls. Gamzee’s room has had dozens of coats of paint over the years. Each coat loses more and more red. 

(why leave it behind?)

Gamzee was allowed to paint the back of the house. There was a big wall space with no windows. It’s made of brick. Gamzee paints the background colors. He doesn’t know what he wants to put there yet. A sunset is always a good bet, but there’s so many to chose from. Something generic and ethereal? Again it’s been done so many times. Gamzee sits on the small step ladder out there for hours, sketching and looking at the wall with paints beside him. The background has been done in blues and greens with hints of white splatters. Like an ocean.

It was a nice day outside. Gamzee gnaws idly at the butt end of his paintbrush. He stares at the colored wall, sitting on the grassy ground. The step ladder was needed for someone to fix the lights in the home. Gamzee rocks side to side. He considers the wall. 

(paint it RED RED RED)

(red like home)

(red like us)

Dave came out of the house. Gamzee watches him out of the corner of his eyes. Dave wears weird things. He had on overalls that have been cut above the knees. It’s the kind that isn’t made for work like the one Gamzee had been given. He had a t-shirt on underneath, something white with dark red sleeve. Before Dave stepped off the porch, he sprayed himself over several times with sunscreen. Gamzee could smell it, poignant in the air and making his stomach twist. 

Dave walked out into the yard casually. There was a woman in the hamoc that’s also staying at the house, reading a book and wearing a floppy sun hat. Gamzee tucked his chin between his knees and rubs his legs with his hands. He didn’t like wearing shorts but the heat demaded it. His limbs are too long for short clothes. Dave put himself down against the wall that came out of the one Gamzee was working on.

Gamzee watched him, looking over his knees. No one ever sat any where near him. He tried not to over think it and failed. Dave didn’t seem to notice him, scrolling on his phone and leaning back comfortably.

(he noticed. they always notice)

Gamzee couldn’t deal with the noise and he jumped to his feet. He shook his arms and legs out. Mister Vantas liked crabs. Gamzee would paint a crab

(a red crab)

Crabs are actually nautrally blue and brown. 

(fuck you)

Gamzee grabbed his sketch book and walked closer to the wall. He did a quick thumbnail then regarded the wall again. He tilted his head this way and that. He held up his pencil to make measurements. He did another thumbnail with a bit more detail. He felt Dave looking at him even if he couldn’t see it behind the sunglasses that were glued to his face. 

With another full body shake, Gamzee dropped his things and grabbed the blue paint. He mixed it with brown. It made a nice crab color. He worked with a large brush first, to get the shape down. He fell into a familiar rythmn. It’s disrupted when Dave got up and moved to sit where Gamzee had been sitting. It was an active effort not to freak out. 

(eyes looking when you do not see them are dangerous)

(dangerous, dangerous)

“Is it an aquatic shit?” Dave asked. It was the first time Gamzee had heard his voice. It would not be the last, but at the moment it grated across Gamzee’s skin and he whipped around. Dave had his legs criss-cross applesauce and was leaning his chin in his palms. He tilted his head to look at the wall from a different angle. “Like a literal piece of shit that landed on the bottom of the ocean? That’s kinda metal.”

“No,” Gamzee mumbled. He went back to painting, fighting the urge to glance back every few seconds.

“Hmm. Is it a… rock?”

“This ain’t fucking pictionary,” Gamzee snapped. It was louder than he wanted. 

(scream. make your vocal chords raw and bloody. paint your insides the delicious fucking red)

His throat tightens and his eyes sting. Mister Vantas warned him that guests don’t like a staff that uses that language. Gamzee took several steadying breaths before continuing to paint. He was going big. It’d take a few days, he figured, to make the crab look like a crab. He paused briefly and took it in. It did kind of look like a piece of crap. A really bad one, but when did a piece of crap look good.

Dave stayed watching for a while. He hummed a song Gamzee didn’t know. His voice was smooth and melodic. 

Gamzee finished blocking shapes in. He gathered his things and Dave looked the wall over. Gamzee hadn’t known his name at the time. His skin is nearly a perfect white, flushed only slightly from the heat of the air. Dave peered up at Gamzee from behind his shades. Gamzee stood up with all his things in his arms. He felt stuck to the spot with Dave’s head tilted up at him. 

“Still looks like a rock, dude,” Dave said. He spoke it in a way that seemed conspiratorial. Gamzee stared at him. 

There were purple eyes over one of his shoulders and Gamzee looked at those instead. They blinked at him and the stapled lips grinned at him. Dave turned his head to try and see what Gamzee was looking at. The motion snapped Gamzee out of his trance. He locked his eyes on the ground and marched back to the house. He went to bite on the butt of his paint brush again but got the bristle end. It tasted nothing like acryllic so Gamzee spat it out. There was a person in the kitchen. They clear out as Gamzee stumbled in. He set about cleaning the brush and little paint holder. 

Dave came in, too, a few minutes later. He sat at the counter and ate a slice of pie left out. He hummed again, happy and lighter than the song outside. 

“You work here?” Dave asked. Gamzee stiffened but tried to hide it. He doubted that it worked. 

“Yeah,” Gamzee answered. He put his brush and paint holder off to the side, out of the way so they could dry untouched. 

“Then you know who makes these pies?” 

“I do.”

Gamzee walked back outside and picked up his paint can. He placed the lid back on, sure to make it seal. He carried it inside with two hands. It was heavier than it had any right to be. He walked it back into the house and placed it near the entrance. He shuffled back into the kitchen. Dave perked up a bit when Gamzee stood back in front of the sink

“I’m Dave. What’s your name?” 

“Gamzee.”

He knows better than to say his last name in first introductions. He made that mistake far too many times. 

“Well Gamzee you are fucking fantastic at baking,” Dave said. Gamzee smiled. He ducked his head and crouched to dig around the bottom cabinets. 

Mister Vantas gave Gamzee errands to run during the back half of the day. Grocery store runs and dropping off some mail at the post office. He also gave Gamzee a small amount of money to spend while he was in town. Gamzee didn’t bother going to town too often. Too many people, too many eyes, too many smells, too many corners to hide around, too little spaces with no other entrance or exit. 

Gamzee bought some new pencils at the fancier art store. He bought some more soda, a few party size bags of candy, and gum. 

The ride back is bumpy with all the things he’s carrying back. Gamzee managed, even if his legs clack awkwardly against the bars of the bike. The sun was going down when he got back. Dinner had been cooked by someone already. Gamzee put his things in his room before getting something to eat. He filled a plate with the steak cuts and vegetable sides that Mister Vantas was so fond of.

Gamzee stared at the food for a while, then at the walls, then at the two sitting across from him. Purple eyes and messy black hair like his own. Gamzee picked up his fork and took a bite out of the greens. The larger one across the table snarled viciously. The shorter shook his head. Gamzee counted his bites. 

The two got louder. The older slammed fists on the table, snarling and growling. The other stared without blinking, smile placid and permanent. Gamzee ate four whole bites. He put his fork down and collapsed against the table top. He heaved and fought down the urge to puke. His hands shook. He ducked his head and cushioned it on his arms.

There were footsteps and Gamzee sat back up straight. His breaths were too heavy to be normal and he worked to slow them as Dave walked into the room. Dave nodded at Gamzee in acknowledgement. He grabbed his own plate and sat where the other two had been. Gamzee tried to pick up the fork again. Dave needed to see him eat. People needed to see him eat. If it was so bad, then he could just throw it up later. He hated throwing it up. 

“You okay?” Dave asked. Gamzee grabbed his own hand and placed them in his lap.

“Not as hungry as I up and thought,” Gamzee said. 

“That’s okay. Don’t gotta make yourself eat,” Dave said. He shrugged as he dug into his own dinner. Gamzee calmed his breathing. He wanted to go to sleep. In his room. In his bed. “It’ll make you sick.”

“You’re already sick,” someone murmured. 

Dave didn’t hear them. Something fell upstairs, followed by shouted apologizes and muffled cursing. Gamzee blinked and snapped himself out of it again. He stood and boxed the leftovers. He placed them in the fridge. Dave wished him good night and Gamzee haphazardly did the same. 

The stairs seemed longer than they were. The hall seemed shorter. Gamzee got to his room in the end, changing his clothes and lying to go to sleep. He doesn’t know if he sleeps any more. It’s hard to tell what was real or not. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of the key pieces of oyeyemi's style is blending titles and story content (title leading into the lines, etc) and blending line breaks so i'm working on that as best as i can


	3. Summer

was Gamzee’s least favorite season. More people were coming and going as children were out of school. Gamzee had to wear shorts and t-shirts to not feel boiled alive.

(no, ruined the texture. roasted is best)

Summer used to be better. Kankri had been abroad for years, so he was rarely around. Karkat used to come back from college, though. He didn’t any more. Gamzee never got an answer as to why. It happened around the same time Karkat slowed his texting. Around the time when they found a dead body in the lake half a mile out from the house.

Gamzee had learned to fix the AC units three summers ago. It was pretty easy and any gaps in his knowledge were filled by Google. He was allowed to because there were no sharp bits. Electrocution was the only real risk. Mister Vantas gave him the tool box that just sat around in a closet.

Gamzee’s skin was sticking to the wooden floor of the hall. He poked at the mechanical guts and compared it to the images and guides he pulled up. Dave walked in with a liter bottle of apple juice. He stopped a few feet away from Gamzee on the floor. Gamzee put a lot of effort into ignoring him.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Dave asked.

“Barely,” Gamzee said.

“Well that’s a big ass mood,” Dave laughed. Dave walked over and crouched down next to Gamzee. He pointed to the vent that Gamzee was poking at. “It’s in backwards.”

Gamzee flipped it over and it fit as it should have earlier. Gamzee grumbled a thanks. Dave stayed there for a while, pointing out corrections and what Gamzee was either missing or fucking up.

Dave smelled like apples. The sweet kind of scent you get in a soap marketed at kids. Gamzee wanted to lean into the smell. It reminded him of elementary school when he lived with his family.

Gamzee told Dave that Mister Vantas wasn’t going to pay him for helping. Dave shrugged it off and said he rather not have his thighs stick to every available surface. Gamzee had to agree. Summer heat was doing him in, too. Dave had candy in his pockets. When they finished with the AC unit, they sat against the wall and ate the candy. It was sickeningly sweet as all candy should be.

Dave asked him if he worked there. Gamzee said it was how he paid for living there, how he didn’t have another place to go. He didn’t elaborate and Dave didn’t ask. They finished off the candy. They stayed sitting on the floor for a long while, chatting about this and that.

Dave was a student on some website. He was studying myths and things that got left behind. He liked dead things he said. Not like that, he was quick to correct.

Gamzee said dead things cropped up in that area often. His stomach growled and he stood up. He picked up the AC unit and carried it down the hall to the room it was from.  


 

 

There was metal taste in his mouth. Gamzee distracted himself with putting the unit back in the window. When it was in, he plugged it into the wall and turned it on. Cool air blew out. Gamzee stood in front of it as his gums stung and the bitter metal tang filled his mouth.

(we have to eat)

Gamzee covered his face with his hands and peeked out between his fingers. The shorted man from the dinner when he and Dave spoke stood in front of him on the other side of the window.

(why are you thinking like that?)

Gamzee rubbed his eyes and turned around. He rushed down the hall and up the stairs to his room. There were footsteps just a second after his own feet hit the floor. He slammed the door to his room shut behind him.

(you can’t do this forever, Gamzee)

Gamzee looked up between his fingers. The shorter man stood in front of him, frowning for the first time Gamzee saw in a while. 

(stop it)

His voice was raspy and unused as it had been when he had his own body.

The man leaned down. He placed hands on Gamzee’s face, pulling Gamzee’s hands away. He wrapped fingers around Gamzee’s jaw and stuck thumbs in his mouth, holding it open. Gamzee’s gums screamed in pain as they split and blood began to fall. The man kept Gamzee’s mouth open until the new teeth settled. He didn’t let go even then. Gamzee stared at the purple purple eyes.

Gamzee closed his mouth and tucked the extra teeth behind his lips. He stumbled out of his room and down the hall. It was much later than he thought. He nearly slipped down the stairs in his rush to get out of the house. Out. Out out out. Out of his skin and out of his mind.

The night was warm, that odd middle ground where nights should be cold but summer is hot so it isn’t cold. Nights need to be cold. Nights are cold and bodies are warm. Red is warm.

Down the street there were purple eyes, peering between trees and shadows. Faces painted with smiles and frowns. Mirthful grins followed Gamzee down the street. Perfect smiles dripping red and all the colors of the rainbow. Gamzee had a new idea for what to paint on the walls in his room.

**Author's Note:**

> the "steamiest" thing i've ever written and it's these two fucking idiots. this is rly how it be


End file.
